Woodrow Keeble was North Dakota’s most highly decorated veteran. He served in World War II with the 164th at Guadalcanal. He later served in Korea where he earned the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart and several campaign medals. Though he was nominated in 1951 for the Congressional Medal of Honor, the paperwork for that award was lost – twice – and he did not receive that award until 2004, more than twenty years after his death in 1982. The Medal of Honor is the highest award given to a combat soldier for valor. It is awarded by the President of the United States on behalf of Congress.

Woodrow Keeble, a Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota, was born at Pickerel Lake, South Dakota in 1917. He attended the Wahpeton Indian School where he distinguished himself as a pitcher on a winning team – a skill that might have been useful when he threw grenades into sniper bunkers in 1951. His wounds left him disabled and he left military service after the Korean War.